On one of his last days with us before his classes started in Geneva, we took Morgan to Appenzell. He had mentioned wanting to take a bus/train and I scoffed and said we would gladly take him. It was one of our best visits to this beautiful town ever. We saw things we have never seen in all our other visits.
We had stopped in at the chocolate factory outside St. Gallen on the way there only to discover that the entire factory was closed during the Christmas holidays. Awesome for the workers, very sad for us. No being mesmerized by the chocolate running down the conveyor belts, no free samples to munch on. 🙁 So we drowned our sorrows in cheese instead!
The factory has changed a lot over the years, since we first started bringing visitors here. But most of the changes are for the better, more bathrooms for one, and there is now a new movie to watch. Fortunately, there is still free parking and free admission, our favorite part! We bought a good sized chunk of all three varieties of Appenzell and decided that the surchoix, or strongest one, was our favorite. This greatly surprised the woman by the counter, who may have been expecting my english-speaking children to turn up their noses at such an overpowering flavor, but they LOVED it. 🙂
And of course, there are still the silly cow statues out front for silly boys to ride on.
We had a picnic in the car out of respect for Sarah and her fear of the animal heads in the factory restaurant. It was actually quite fun, and we ended up eating most of our delicious, newly bought cheese.
I think the camera battery must have died, because I can think of no other explanation of why I don’t have photos of us exploring the actual town. We showed him the tiny chapel the kids love, and then we went inside the big cathedral we have never once entered in all our visits to Appenzell. I have no explanation as to why this took 12 years. It is a beautiful building. Absolutely gorgeous stained glass windows, bright cheery colors, and dressed up as it was in Christmas finery, it was over the top delightful. We stayed inside looking at everything for quite a long while, it was too pretty to leave quickly. We even explored up by the organ, down in the lower chapel, and walked through most of the graveyard. I highly recommend it.
We had “fun” using the free public restrooms right off the main shopping street. Some of the kids needed a bit of encouragement as there were rumors of no toilet paper or soap, but it all came out alright in the end. haha!
We had delicious treats from the bakery, bought a few trinkets from the toy store, and had fun chasing the bubbles blown by the giant bear on the roof. All in all, a wonderful day, and we are so glad we could share it with Morgan.